Text of my ‘When Worlds Collide’ column published in Ceylon Today Sunday newspaper on 6 May 2012

Growing up in a very different Sri Lanka during the 1970s, I was image starved.

We had no television, no Internet, and going to the cinema was a rare treat. And cameras were uncommon – those who owned them had to carefully plan every photograph to make the best use of film rolls with a finite number of shots (12, 24 or 36).

My school teacher parents had a Kodak box camera, using which they took some home photos of my early years. Two dozen black-and-whites (some in sepia prints) survive to this day in remarkably good shape. That is all I have to show for the first decade and half of my life.

I also have a few (now fading) colour photos from my mid to late teens, taken fleetingly with…